


Conflicts and Control

by TheDarkChocolateLord



Category: Keeper of the Lost Cities Series - Shannon Messenger
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Book 8.5: Unlocked, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Gen, Humor, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Keefe and Amy being bros, Oneshot, Unlocked Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:08:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27784246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkChocolateLord/pseuds/TheDarkChocolateLord
Summary: SPOILERS FOR BOOK 8.5 UNLOCKED.Keefe needs a safe place in the human world. Luckily, he knows a human. Unluckily, his powers are growing stronger, and staying away from the Lost Cities might put both of them, or the people they care about, in more danger.
Relationships: Keefe Sencen & Amy Foster
Comments: 12
Kudos: 36





	Conflicts and Control

"What–no–what— _ KEEFE? _ " Amy gasped. 

The boy on the doorstep flashed his trademark smirk. "Hey. Miss me?" 

His voice was different than usual—barely above a whisper, probably worried that they're going to be caught—but even if it wasn't for the tunic and cape that screamed  _ elf _ , she'd recognize Keefe Sencen anywhere.

"This can't be right," Amy muttered. This  _ had  _ to be one of her crazy dreams, one of the ones where she's flying on Silveny and then Sophie's gone and she looks around and all of a sudden she's falling and she screams for her parents but, no, they're gone, they must have been kidnapped again and cloaked figures start to appear—

"Take a deep breath," the familiar voice interrupted. "Breathe. In for six seconds, out for six seconds…"

One, two, three, four, five, six….six, five, four, three, two, one….she opens her eyes as wide as she can, gripping the doorframe….one, two, three, four, five, six…

"Sorry, did I trigger anything? I didn't mean to—"

"It's fine," Amy mumbled. "It's just—I didn't think it was real. But  _ you're  _ here.  _ You're  _ real."

"Yeah. You're hitting me with serious waves of confusion and panic and fear and stress—wow my ability is stronger now—and it's going to be worse with physical contact. Don't worry, nobody's in danger, I just need a place to lay low while—well, it's hard to explain. Are your parents around? I probably should have hailed before I came."

"You should have," Amy agreed. "You got  _ very  _ lucky. My mom left to run errands ten minutes ago, and my dad's on a business trip this week. We'll have the house to ourselves for a few hours."

"Great," Keefe whispered.

"You can talk at a normal pitch, you know. The neighbors won't be able to hear."

"I know." Still barely a murmur. "It's about my new ability, or maybe I should say  _ abilities _ —"

"You got a new ability?" Amy wondered. "I thought most people only got one, except my sister. And what did you mean earlier when you talked about laying low?"

"I've got a lot to tell you. Also, do you have any of those elf-shaped cookies? I finished all the ones Foster gave me, and I can't believe that humans think elves look like that—"

"Stop trying to distract me." Amy rolled her eyes. Of course Keefe would be a fan of E. L. Fudges. "What's going on, why are you here, and how did you find me?" 

"I'll explain," Keefe promised. He moved towards the doorway.

"Wait." Amy stepped into the center of the doorframe, one hand gripping each side. "Tell me something only the real Keefe Sencen would know. How do I know that you're not one of the kidnappers in disguise?"

"Your sister has a stuffed elephant named Ella who wears a Hawaiian shirt." 

He was right, and he sounded like Keefe and all, but she had to be sure. "Everyone knows that. I need something better."

"Sophie Foster has gold flecks in her brown eyes and the cutest crinkle between her eyebrows when she's worried—"

"Keefe, I know you have a crush on my sister. It's obvious….well, obvious to everyone but her." Amy studies his body, wondering if this is a trap, if he's going to pull out a disc of sleeping gas—but no, his pockets look empty, and his single satchel is fully on his back.

Keefe sighs. "Can you just let me in? Wait—" his voice dropped to a bare whisper— "that wasn't a command, was it? Please tell me that wasn't a command."

"It wasn't," Amy assured him, unsure what he meant by  _ command _ . "And no. Not until I'm sure." Amy puts her hands on her hips, trying to mimic Sophie's  _ assertive-older-sister  _ look. 

"Fine." Keefe tears his fingers through his hair. "You, Sophie, and Councillor Grumpy flew on alicorns during your time in the Forbidden Cities. Councillor Grumpy also let you touch the points of his ears, which I cannot  _ believe  _ happened, by the way."

Bronte was grumpy enough, and secretive enough, and not that connected to the Neverseen. The chances that Keefe was a Neverseen agent in disguise…."Fine." She stepped aside. "Let's go to my room."

"Thanks so much," Keefe told her. "Now, about those E. L. Fudges…"

"You're incorrigible."

"Is that a compliment?"

"Besides, there are human foods that are way better. I'm going to introduce you to Cheetos."

***

An hour later, Amy and Keefe were on the floor of Amy's room, Amy leaning against her beanbag chair, Keefe sprawled on the rug. An empty bag of Cheetos, and a plate that had once held four E.L. Fudges, laid between them.

"I can think of  _ several  _ reasons why this is a stupid idea," Amy concluded. "One, human emotions are way more intense than elvin, and we have no idea how your commands work, two, there's almost no way for you to get training and help, three, the Neverseen might not know how to find this place but the Black Swan do, and not only does Forkle check on me through a Spyball a  _ lot _ , but this is probably the first place they'll look for you, and four, my parents are going to find out." She was  _ very  _ tempted to take out her emergency Imparter (she always wore either a hoodie or shorts with big pockets, just in case) and hail Sophie. 

"This is only a temporary solution," Keefe assured her, licking the last of the orange dust off his fingers.

"That doesn't mean it's not risky!"

"Risky is my middle name."

"Actually, on the files Quinlin was showing me, your full name was—"

"Let's not go there," Keefe interrupted. 

"Keefe Legacy Cassius Wynn Sencen." Amy finished. "Apparently your mom wanted her first and middle name to be in there, too, but the birthing center put their foot down at giving a kid five middle names, so she settled for 'Legacy'."

Keefe let out a groan that Amy was sure the neighbors could hear.

"It'll be a few days, tops," Keefe assured her.

"What happens after that, though?" Amy wondered. "Are you just going to  _ leave _ ?"

It had only been a couple hours. She shouldn't be feeling this nostalgic. But every detail Keefe told her about, from the latest prank he pulled at Foxfire to what butterblasts tasted like to the stories of Sophie's newest adventures, just made her want to talk to Sophie even more.

"Probably. If I keep moving, my mom can't find me."

"But—"

_ But I want to go back, I want to see Sophie again, I want to hang out with Livvy, I want to– _

"One step at a time," Amy murmured to herself. "Okay. I'll hide you for now. I can't guarantee that we're not going to get caught, though. I've got a sleeping bag in my closet."

"Thanks."

"Let's get stuff set up—like, food and everything." Amy stood up and stretched. "We probably have less than an hour before my mom gets back. And then I'm going to introduce you to some human culture."

***

"How's school going?" Amy's mother asked that night at dinner.

"Fine." Amy searched for something to say that wasn't  _ there is an elf hiding in my bedroom, like Dobby from Harry Potter only NOTHING like Dobby from Harry Potter. _ "Um, I got an A on my most recent math test."

"That's great," her mother beamed.

"Yeah, I guess." Did grades even matter if Keefe was in danger—and if that put  _ her  _ in danger because she was trying to keep him safe? Or her mom?

"Everything okay?" Her mother's expression clouded with concern. "You've been quieter than usual this afternoon."

"Yeah….I just miss Dad." Amy latched onto the topic like she was the prickly side of Velcro. "His jokes, our weekly Monopoly games, how he makes popcorn on the stove on movie nights....just  _ him  _ in general."

"I do, too, honey. But he'll be back on Friday! Actually—" Amy's mother looked at the clock—"we can probably call him in an hour. Denver's an hour ahead of San Diego, so he should be done with dinner and his meetings by then. How's that sound?"

"Great."

There was a loud  _ thump  _ from upstairs.

"What's that?" her mother wondered.

Amy leaped up from her chair. "I'll go check—it's probably just Watson or Marty!" 

She raced upstairs, not bothering to get a reply.

Her door was at the end of the hall; she pushed it open. Keefe was standing amidst a pile of novels. Amy didn't wait for him to explain. 

"My mom heard that," she hissed. "She could have caught us."

"I'm super sorry—"

"It's fine. Keep it down, okay?" 

Keefe nodded.

She closed the door and raced for the stairs, making her footsteps as loud as possible to cover any excess noise that Keefe might be making.

"Everything okay?" her mom asked.

"Yeah, I just had a too-tall stack of books on my desk and they fell."

***

It was like living on the edge of a cliff, worried that the ground would crumble beneath her, inside or out. Every moment spent with her mom, worrying that something would happen that she couldn't make an excuse for. Every moment spent with Keefe, worrying that they were making too much noise.

The lies piled up, little by little.  _ It was Marty. It was Watson. Don't come into my closet, I'm working on a project. I need extra food because it's my turn to bring snacks for debate club.  _

If Amy's mom noticed or suspected, she didn't say a word. 

Luckily, that Friday was parent-teacher conferences, and that gave Amy and Keefe a couple hours to just  _ be _ .

"Plus four," Amy grinned, placing the blue card atop the stack.

" _ I was down to two cards _ !" Keefe gasped. "This is betrayal."

"And now you're up to six," Amy told him. "Besides, after you changed the color to  _ green  _ four turns ago and I had to draw seven cards before I got a green, you're getting off easy."

Keefe groaned, drawing four more cards. "Maybe we should go back to watching those weird videos. What were they called, Vein? TockTick? They were kinda funny."

" _ Vine  _ and  _ TikTok _ ," Amy informed him, trying not to laugh. "And that card also skips your turn, so…." She leaned close and placed down a blue 8. "Uno!"

"Good game," Keefe sighed, offering a handshake. Amy accepted it.

"That's a serious amount of smugness and joy and—" Keefe's voice shifted to a murmur, like a video on fast forward.

"Is this the emotional overload thing you were telling me about?" Amy guessed, dropping his hand and trying to back as far away as possible. Panic jolted through her like a current racing down a wire—which only made it worse, causing Keefe to shriek—and she didn't know what to do, she needed to calm him down but she didn't know how—

_ "STOP!"  _ Keefe gasped.  _ "ENOUGH!" _

The world blurred and spun and her eyes shut and she was stuck, couldn't move, couldn't  _ feel _ , like…..

Drifting in and out

real, not real, hazy, blurry…

in and out. mind? body?

lost

blank

_ silent _

  
  
  
  
  


"AMY!" a voice shouted.

did she know that voice?

was this an escape? was it fake?

was anything real?

  
  


" _ Wake up! FEEL!" _

tingling all over her

misty drops, a rainy day

tickling her senses

_ "RESTART!" _

rainfall, rainstorm

running, rushing, roaring, raging

Reaching

Restarting

The world spun into focus.

Shock, then fear, then panic, then  _ relief— _

Her shoulder ached, and she blinked her eyes open again. She was lying on her bed—she probably had fallen and hit her shoulder on her desk or something—and Keefe was standing on the other side of the room.

"Amy, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to use a command on you—here." He handed her a water bottle.

"What  _ happened _ ?"

"I used a command on you by accident. You've been surprisingly calm about this, but we both got heated and then the physical contact made it worse, I guess."

"Have you come close to using one on me? Besides that first day on the doorstep, I mean?"

"Three times," Keefe admitted. "It's worse than in the elvin world, with how strong your emotions are. I thought it would be better with humans, that if I was exposed to an overdose of strong emotions it would kinda shut my ability down, but…"

"Then you know that it's not working!" Amy shoved her hand into her pocket and yanked out her Imparter. "I'm hailing Sophie."

"Amy,  _ no _ —"

"She'll know what's going on!" Amy raced to the opposite corner of the room, trying to put some distance between herself and Keefe to stop that from ever happening again. "I don't care what your motives are or were, Keefe—this just keeps getting worse and worse! We've almost gotten caught like five times, I'm lying to my mom about  _ everything _ , and you haven't gotten any better at controlling your  _ stupid  _ ability! This is just a huge mess, and if you leave here and try to 'integrate into the human world' like you planned, it's just going to get worse! Show me Sophie Foster," she told her Imparter.

"Amy, I didn't mean to put so much pressure on you, I can just leave now—"

Amy moved to in front of the door. "No. We're going to  _ figure this out _ ." 

The screen of her Imparter was still blank.

"Show me Sophie Foster," she tried again.

No reply.

"It might be a problem with your Imparter," Keefe mused, taking out his own. "Show me Sophie Foster."

"Maybe she's just offline?" Amy guessed.

"Show me Fitz Vacker," Keefe told his Imparter. It stayed silent. "Huh. Maybe they're both busy plotting something? Show me Dex Dizznee."

Nothing. 

" _ Show me Grady Ruewen! _ " Keefe yelled at his screen, and Amy knew it was a command from the extra inflections in his voice.

Still nothing.

"Okay,  _ what's _ going on?" Amy wondered. "Show me Mr. Forkle."

_ Still  _ nothing.

"Grady told me to hail him if I needed him. There's no way he'd ignore it. Our Imparters can't  _ both  _ be broken," Keefe mused. 

"I know, especially since Mr. Forkle just hailed me to check in last week."

"Show me Biana Vacker. Show me Linh Song. Show me Wylie Endal."

"Slow down," Amy told Keefe.

"Show me Marella Redek," Keefe tried.

The screen stayed blank.

"They're  _ all  _ busy?" Amy gasped.

"Probably went to fight the Neverseen without me. Man, I miss out on all the fun," Keefe sighed.

"Show me Livvy Sonden," Amy pleaded.

The ringtone echoed through the room, and then Livvy appeared on Sophie's screen. "Hey, guys."

"Thank goodness you picked up," Amy gasped. "Keefe's new ability is going haywire and we can't reach anyone. What's going on?"

"Keefe's with you?" Livvy wondered. "You know, I'm not even surprised at this point. It's been a  _ very  _ weird day. I can't tell you much more than that, because of...security issues. I'll explain if you come back."

"You can't tell us any more than that?" Keefe begged.

"Like I said. Security issues. I'm sorry. I hope you two are safe." As she said that, Livvy was scribbling on a piece of paper, which she then held up to the camera. 

_ The Neverseen's Technopath can possibly hack Imparter signals. They could be listening. The Neverseen attacked and Sophie's in danger. Come to the place with the picture of Sophie in her Level Four Opening Ceremonies costume. _

"Oh,  _ no _ ," Amy breathed.

Keefe cussed under his breath.

"We're coming," Amy told Livvy. Before anyone could argue with her, she added, "Stay safe," and shut the Imparter off. "Okay, let's go find my sister. Is your concentration strong enough to leap me as well?"

"Amy, please—didn't you say that it would be simpler if I wasn't here and you could go back to your old life? It's going to be way more complicated!"

"Oh, now  _ you're  _ the one lecturing me on danger?"

"No, I want to keep you safe too! Foster's already in danger and maybe I could have stopped it, and every minute we're together you're in extra danger!"

"That doesn't mean I don't want to see Sophie again!"

"You know that your mom's going to freak when I get back and you're gone, right?" Keefe rationalized.

"I could come up with some excuse," Amy tried, but she knew that it was futile.

At that moment, her phone buzzed with a text from her mom.

_ Your conferences went overtime. Dad's plane is getting in soon. Should I swing by here so you can meet him at the airport or do you want to stay home? _

The airport was a good half hour away from her house, forty minutes from her school, and adding in the fact that flights were almost always late….

She might get to see her sister after all. 

_ I've got homework :(  _ Amy texted back.

_ Ok. I'll see you in a couple hours. Love you _

_ Love you, too _

"I just bought us two hours. Three if we're lucky," Amy told Keefe. "Let's go."

When Keefe didn't respond, she pressed further. "We both want to make sure my sister is safe, we're both going to be in more danger by going to the elvin world, and we both might be able to help Sophie!" She grabbed the wrist that held his leaping crystal. "Take me with you."

Keefe tried to twist her off, but Amy's grip stayed strong. "I'm done with people acting like I'm not strong enough to handle anything important. I didn't go through everything I did in the Lost Cities, keep my memories, have my missing memory returned, and keep you hidden for almost a week just to have you brush me off again!"

"Fine," Keefe relented. 

"Promise?"

Keefe looked her in the eye. "I promise."

Amy let go of his wrist. 

"Ready?" Keefe asked, holding up a pathfinder and offering her his hand. A thin beam of clear light hit the floor. 

"Ready," Amy agreed.

She'd get to go back to the Lost Cities.

She  _ needed  _ to make sure Sophie was safe.

And even though a tiny part of her knew that this was stupid and dangerous, even though this could get her killed, she was ready. She had this chance, and she wasn't backing down.

_ You can do this,  _ she told herself.

Terrified, trepidatious, and a tiny bit thrilled, she gripped Keefe's hand as tightly as possible and stepped into the light.

  
  



End file.
